You have made it to 2024. On the menu today: Did you know that a range of figures — from FBI director Christopher Wray, Virginia senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, and almost the entire Virginia congressional delegation — are accusing a high-level Biden administration official at the General Services Administration of issuing a tainted decision to help old friends, with billions of dollars at stake? Amazing what gets missed in a busy news cycle. This weekend, Donald Trump argued that the FBI needed a “new and spectacular building, in the best location” in the nation’s capital, and that the FBI was moving to Greenbelt, Md. (“a far away location”) because the bureau was “running away” from violent crime. Trump’s in the right church but wrong pew, as the GSA decision appears to be a case of a Biden appointee overruling recommendations and helping old coworkers at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in a lucrative land deal. Read on.
Where Should the New FBI Headquarters Be Built?
You might think that Donald Trump could no longer surprise us. But there he was, as 2023 ended, declaring on Truth Social that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — you know, a key part of the alleged “deep state” that is out to get him — needed a “new and spectacular building, in the best location” in the nation’s capital:
The FBI Headquarters should not be moved to a far away location, but should stay right where it is, in a new and spectacular building, in the best location in our now crime ridden and filthy dirty, graffiti scarred, Capital. They should be involved in bringing back D.C., not running away from it, especially the violent crime. An important part of my platform for President is to bring back, restore, and rebuild Washington, D.C., into the “crown jewel” of our Nation. We will make it crime free and GREAT AGAIN. The FBI should not be fleeing for safer, yet much less convenient, environs. It should make where they are now the safest place on earth! DON’T MOVE THE FBI!
First, there is indeed a strong case that the FBI could really use a new headquarters building. The first FBI employees moved into the current headquarters in June 1974. (Up until then, the bureau mostly operated out of the Department of Justice building, built in 1935.) Back in February 2016, the General Services Administration submitted a prospectus to Congress for the construction of a new FBI headquarters facility. The previous year, Jonathan O’Connell of the Washington Post reported:
Beneath the headquarters of America’s premier crime-fighting organization, one of the parking ramps has been condemned because corroded pieces of the ceiling were falling on cars.
Netting hangs on the Ninth Street facade to prevent broken concrete from hitting passersby 160 feet down on the sidewalk below. During a July fire drill, half of the building’s alarms didn’t go off. . . .
In the meantime, the FBI headquarters is crumbling. On a rare tour of the building, bureau officials pointed to cracked concrete, makeshift work stations in former storage areas and badly dated building systems. The officials said the structure is now so inefficient that it has begun to hinder the agency’s modern mission, one increasingly focused on combating international terrorist threats and cyber crime.
They are also increasingly concerned that the Hoover Building could be susceptible to attacks.
“Having a state-of-the-art facility that meets that mission is paramount,” said Richard L. Haley II, FBI assistant director and chief financial officer. “Security concerns are important. And you just have to open up the public records to see where you know bad things can happen if you don’t have the right security precautions.”
That was eight years and two months ago, and it is safe to assume that the structural and maintenance problems of that nearly 50-year-old building are not resolved. Right now, more than 11,000 FBI employees work in the J. Edgar Hoover Building and 13 other leased properties across the Washington, D.C., region — and in the eyes of the GSA, those leases for other office spaces around the region were not cost-efficient. The GSA identified three potential new locations for the facility: Greenbelt and Landover in Maryland, and Springfield, Va.
But in July 2017, GSA canceled the relocation project, citing the fact that the process of finding and building a new headquarters would cost about $1.4 billion, and Congress had only appropriated $523 million. Then in the fiscal year 2022 consolidated appropriations bill, Congress jump-started the search process again, instructing the GSA to select one of the three sites “in as expeditious [a] manner as possible.”
This led to Maryland and Virginia state officials effectively campaigning for sites on their respective sides of the Potomac. Construction and development of a major new federal agency headquarters means jobs — both for the construction process and in the long-term as thousands of federal employees will not just pick up lunch and dry cleaning from businesses around there but possibly move to the states for shorter commutes.
The FBI wanted a site that offered proximity to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., as well as proximity to “operationally significant FBI real estate assets in the region” — such as the Washington field office — and proximity to the Department of Justice, U.S. Capitol, and White House, as well as a site that was walking distance to a Metro station, walking distance to a Virginia Railway Express or a Maryland Area Regional Commuter station, accessibility to a major bus-line stop, and proximity to a commercial airport.
In addition to site flexibility and cost, the bureau also had priorities in the category of:
“Promoting Sustainable Siting and Advancing Equity,” listed as “advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities” and “promoting sustainable locations and strengthening the vitality and livability of communities in which federal facilities are located.”
On November 9, the General Services Administration announced it had “determined Greenbelt to be the best option for the FBI and the United States government because the site was the lowest cost to taxpayers, provided the greatest transportation access to FBI employees and visitors, and gave the government the most certainty on project delivery schedule. It also provided the highest potential to advance sustainability and equity.”
The selection of Greenbelt was a bit of a surprise, as an earlier assessment had concluded that while all three sites had “significant warts,” the logistical challenges of the Greenbelt site were considerable:
The Greenbelt site was located near a Metrorail station, but the FBI was concerned about the site because it was half wetlands and the amount of buildable space was far less than what was anticipated when the site was selected in 2014. Additionally, before work could begin on the Greenbelt site, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority needed to build a parking garage to replace a parking lot that was on the site, which was a scheduling concern. . . . Further, according to FBI witnesses, there were major, fixed infrastructure costs associated with building a facility on any of these three sites, and Landover and Greenbelt had land acquisition costs because they were not government-owned.
There is an extremely good reason to object to the GSA’s selection of Greenbelt, but it has nothing to do with crime rates in the District of Columbia, as Trump suggested. No, no less a figure than FBI director Christopher Wray is accusing the GSA of old-fashioned corruption and political favoritism:
A government watchdog is launching an investigation into how the Biden administration chose a suburban Maryland site for the FBI’s new headquarters after Director Christopher Wray and Virginia lawmakers accused a political appointee of inappropriately interfering with the siting decision.
Robert Erickson, acting inspector general for the General Services Administration, told lawmakers Thursday his office would immediately probe the decision to relocate the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s main campus to Greenbelt, Md., after a decadelong site-selection process.
A senior Biden appointee picked the Maryland location, overruling a panel of career GSA and FBI officials who had unanimously recommended a site in Springfield, Va., not far from a host of FBI operations at the Quantico Marine Base and other national-security agencies.
Wray blasted the GSA and cited a potential conflict of interest. The GSA commissioner who made the decision, Nina M. Albert, is a former vice president of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which owns the land now slated for the headquarters in Greenbelt.
Albert left the GSA in October after being appointed Washington’s acting deputy mayor for planning and economic development, according to an online profile. Wray said Albert had unilaterally changed the criteria at the last minute in a way that would benefit Greenbelt.
Wray wasn’t alone; on the day of the decision, Virginia’s Democratic senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine; the state’s GOP governor Glenn Youngkin, and House Democrats Don Beyer, Gerry Connolly, Jennifer McClellan, Bobby Scott, Abigail Spanberger, Jennifer Wexton; and House Republicans Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman all issued a joint statement accusing the GSA of issuing a “tainted” decision:
We are deeply disturbed to learn that a political appointee at the General Services Administration overruled the unanimous recommendation of a three-person panel comprised of career experts from the GSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluding that Springfield, Virginia is the site best suited for the new FBI headquarters. We have repeatedly condemned political interference in the independent, agency-run site selection process for a new FBI headquarters. Any fair weighing of the criteria points to a selection of Virginia. It is clear that this process has been irrevocably undermined and tainted, and this decision must now be reversed.
For what it’s worth, last month, Pennsylvania Republican representative Scott Perry, chairman of the House Transportation subcommittee that oversees public buildings, also is skeptical of the GSA decision, although he doubts the FBI needs a new headquarters. “I will say upfront I am not convinced the FBI needs a brand new building. While the world has become more dangerous, the FBI finds time to investigate parents at school board meetings and uses its resources to try and silence dissent. So I am not on board with the idea the FBI needs a shiny new building at the taxpayers’ expense.” Note that GSA commissioner Nina Albert declined to appear before that House panel.
It is understandable that Republicans would look at the FBI in a new, more suspicious light after the revelations of the extremely partisan attitudes of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as well as the unnamed FBI lawyer who asked then-director Jim Comey in late October 2016, “Should you consider that what you are about to do may help elect Donald Trump president?” Comey’s decision to become a #Resistance celebrity did enormous damage to the bureau’s image and reputation for pursuing the law regardless of party. The fact that the investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden for self-evident crimes proceeded at the pace of a kidney stone exacerbated the perception among Republicans that there is one standard of justice for their party and another for well-connected Democrats.
But the FBI employs approximately 35,000 people, including special agents and support professionals such as intelligence analysts, language specialists, scientists, and information-technology specialists. Whatever you think of Wray or other top officials at the FBI now, the country needs an institution that enforces federal laws and investigates crimes.
Every day, the bureau announces new guilty pleas and convictions in cases of fentanyl and other drug smuggling, illegal gunrunning, insider trading, carjacking rings, espionage, child sex abuse, kidnapping and murder, Medicaid fraud, hacking and cybercrime, and activists defacing artwork in museums. Few of these guilty pleas or convictions make big headlines, but just because you aren’t hearing about or paying attention to the FBI doing old-fashioned crimefighting doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. We shouldn’t let the indisputable bad guys off the hook because we’re mad about the outspoken political agendas of a couple of officials. Punishing the institution that hunts down dangerous criminals is cutting off our nose to spite our face. I don’t particularly care where a new headquarters building is located — traffic in northern Virginia is bad enough already — but I’d prefer the FBI have the best facilities and resources available for the hard work of putting bad guys behind bars.
Or at least a headquarters building where the pipes stop bursting on a regular basis.
ADDENDUM: A reminder that I’m speaking in the Atlanta area on January 18 as part of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation lunch lecture series. I’ll talk about the 2024 presidential race, what I saw in Ukraine and Taiwan, and because there will be a Q&A, whatever you ask about.
It’s $55, but it looks like you get a really good lunch out of it.